Graduation!

Alright, it's been well over a month since I graduated (almost two months, actually), and I never posted anything! Ridiculous, considering this whole blog had been leading up to that moment. So here it is, my very belated blog about my graduation day.

In short, it was a truly fantastic day, and I spent it with almost all of my favourite people. I'd heard the month before that I'd won two prizes (the British Psychological Society Undergraduate Award, for having the highest overall degree grade on graduation, and the Applied Psychology Prize, for having the highest grade in my placement year), so the afternoon started by going to the reception to pick up the awards. What I didn't realise was that I'd won a third prize too, the Social Sciences Rotary Prize, for 'distinguished performance in the stage 3 exams'! It was a lovely surprise, and my supervisor was pretty pleased he'd managed to keep that one a surprise.

After the reception, we all headed down to the cathedral to pick up the ridiculous robes and hat in preparation for the ceremony.

 Of course, it was the windiest day ever, so keeping the hat on, the robes steady and the dress in the right place was a little challenging. The ceremony itself was pretty long, and there was a lot of queuing, however picking up the certificate felt good! It was a great way of celebrating four years of hard work, and I'm so pleased that I finally achieved it.

So, what now? Well, in two weeks I'm due to begin my master's degree! Earlier this week, I managed to pay £9,550 of tuition fees - without a loan, but with the help of some very generous people, my wages for the past year and a half and the rest of my savings account. It was pretty daunting, but having looked at some of the lectures I think I can say I made the right choice. Neurons, neurons and more neurons! I'm very much looking forward to it, and next week I'm meeting a potential supervisor for the project element of the course. It's been hard work, and no doubt there will be more hard work to come, but everything is finally coming together! As for this blog, well, I don't know whether I'll carry on. I probably will, but maybe not as regularly as I was posting during my final year - there looks like a lot more work on the MSc course, so who knows if I'll have time! Whatever happens, it's been fun! No doubt I'll look back on all this writing and reminisce about the whole of my undergraduate degree experience. I'm now a 'Bachelor of Science' - this time next year I'll have upgraded to 'Master'. That's a pretty cool thought!